TROY, Mich. - With a dispute over convention delegates from Florida and Michigan seemingly settled, Sen. Barack Obama traveled to this battleground state Monday to continue his general election campaign on the day before the marathon nominating season ends.

Campaigning in affluent Oakland County, a swing county in northwest suburban Detroit, Obama pledged party unity following after a 16-month campaign.

"Sen. Clinton has run an outstanding race, she is an outstanding public servant, and she and I will be working together in November," the Illinois Democrat said.

Obama's campaign is expected to cross the threshold needed to win the nomination at some point Tuesday. Already today, he has picked up four superdelegates, including two from Michigan. Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign has announced one new one.

In phone calls to superdelegates today, Obama's campaign is selling hard, suggesting party elected officials and leaders should now join, what one campaign aide described as the "family" -- before the nomination is won.

After his kind remarks for Clinton, Obama kept his focus on Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, as he has for several weeks now.

"There's a reason the problems we face today are so much bigger than they were several years ago," he said. "A big part of it is that George Bush and John McCain have been so focused on pursuing a flawed and costly war in Iraq that they've lost sight of the problems that have been mounting."

McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds responded with this statement: "In Michigan, a state he's largely ignored, Barack Obama appears desperate to divert attention from his weak judgment on foreign policy. Barack Obama failed to support the 'Surge' strategy that drastically reduced violence in Iraq, he's failed to meet with General Petraeus, and failed to see the conditions first-hand in Iraq for 875 days. With a miserable absence of dealing with the on-going issues in Iraq, Barack Obama's shift in focus amounts to little more than damage control."

The stop here marked Obama's second trip to Michigan in as many weeks, as he works to repair wounds from the delegate dispute and position himself against McCain, who has had polling and fundraising success in the state.

Although Detroit will ultimately play a central role in Obama's general election efforts in Michigan, he has yet to campaign in the city, at least since he gave a speech there nearly 13 months ago that criticized the auto industry for not more aggressively boosting fuel standards.

One of the reasons it is awkward for Obama to visit Michigan's largest city is because the city's mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, is under criminal investigation for his office's role in a multimillion-dollar whistle-blower settlement with three former police officers.

Kilpatrick was indicted in March on state criminal charges that he lied in a whistle-blower lawsuit trial about a romantic relationship he had with his then-chief of staff.

Kilpatrick appeared at Obama's side when he made his speech to the Detroit Economic Club in May 2007, a scene the campaign is almost certain to want to avoid between now and November.

Even in the heart of the nation's auto industry, Obama again called for less dependence on oil, as he expressed added confidence in his election and even re-election.

"It's not going to be easy for us to have a new energy future and bring down gas prices," he said. "But we can start now and when we look back eight years from now at the end of my presidency we will be able to say that we have gotten on the right track."

Obama will continue to focus on McCain Tuesday evening, when he is scheduled to hold a rally in St. Paul at the Xcel Energy Center, the same arena where the Arizona Republican will accept his party's nomination in September.

Comments

These are my thoughts guys:

Obama has a 115 pledged delegate lead over Hillary. Since the delegates are to represent the voters of each state, then there is no way possible Hillary can have more popular voters than Obama.

Each state has the right to chose the manner in which they conduct their elections for the presidential nominee, they can have either caucus or primaries. Based on the number of votes, delegates are chosen to represent the voters choice. Just based on that alone, Clinton's claim of leading in the popular vote has to be wrong. However, let's calculate a possible popular vote based on Hillary's numbers.

Hillary has 17,692,901 including Michigan. From those votes she received 1624 pledged delegates. These are the delegates based on the actual votes. That amounts to each delegate representing 10,895 votes. Now, Obama received 1739 pledged delegates, to keep this simple we will multiply this by the Clinton factor 10,895 votes per delegate and we arrive with Obama having 18,946,405 popular votes!

I WANT TO FIX HILLARY CLINTON FOR STAYING WITH BILL WHEN SHE SHOULD HAVE DIVORCED HIM OVER:
1. HIS ANTIMASTURBATION
2. HIS CHEATING ADULTERY
ALSO IM AGAINST HER NOT LISTENING TO ME ABOUT VOTING AGAINST THE ANTI POKER BILL (PHONE CALLS, LETTERS) AND RECEIVING FUNDING FROM HEALTH INSURANCE COMPANIES WHEN THEY ARE ALREADY OVERCHARGING AND AGE DISCRIMINATING. I ALSO BELIEVE LIKE JOE LIEBERMAN THAT BILL CLINTON SHOULD HAVE BEEN IMPEACHED AFTER ILLEGALLY CHEATING ON HIS WIFE.

Thanks so much for laying this out accurately and mathematically. My only disappointment is that Hillary continues to miscalculate, of which I largely suspect is on purpose. However, giving her the benefit of the doubt in either being less estudios in math, the possibility that her camp is deliberately shielding her from the real math results, or both, someone should bring the truth to her attention once and for all.

Thanks, " Col.[ retd.] A.M. Khajawall ", for your comments and for your service to our " Greatgrand Nation ". There is definitely a real choice between the two candidates and I hope we do not make the same mistake, a third time !! We shall see.
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS, BRING THEM HOME, ALIVE AND WHOLE. NOW.

JOHN MCCAIN SAID AMERICA WOULD BE "WELCOMED AS LIBERATOR"
OBAMA SAID, IT'S A MISTAKE TO "ATTACK" TO "OCCUPY" IRAQ
JOHN MCCAIN IS THE "APOSTLE OF APPEASMENT" IN THE REGION!
HE'S WALKED THE MEAN STREETS OF BAGHDAD!
HE'S WALKED THE MEAN STREETS OF COLO SOLO PANAMA CANAL ZONE 1936!
OBAMA VOTED NO ON THE OCCUPATION.
OBAMA VOTED NO ON THE
SECULAR CIVIL WAR!
OBAMA VOTED NO TO THE ONSLAUGHT OF AMERICAN LIVES!
JOHN MCCAIN IS THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED TO AMERICA!
HE'S THE "ELITIST"
HE'S THE NEXT "ISRAELI" ARMS DEALER
OBAMA VOTED NO!
JOHN MCCAIN CONTINUES TO VOTE YES, TO MORE WAR, MORE SECULAR DIVIDE, MORE CATASTROPHIC DESTRUCTION, ALL IN THE NAME OF IRAQI OIL LIBERATION AKA "DOWNEY STREET MEMOS"
JOHN MCSAME, PRESCOTT MCBUSH THE "APOSTLE OF APPEASEMENT" IN THE MIDDLE EAST!
SAME CHANNELL, SAME BATTLEFIELD, SAME BLAME PLAME GAME!
SAME, SAME, SAME MCSAME, SAME!

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